Short Stories - Chapter 14: Chapter 14

"You look exhausted."
I glanced down at Isaac; we were heading through the school parking lot after a game, my dad on my left and his mom on his right.
I shrugged. "It was a pretty tough game. Wasn't expecting this team to make us run so much."
But Isaac shook his head. "I don't mean now," he said. "For the last few weeks you've seemed kind of dead-tired all the time."
I pretended not to know what he meant, but of course I did. I was dead-tired all the time. Balancing school, basketball, extra hours at work, and helping Isaac was wearing me down, and the effects were starting to show. Sleep felt like more of a privilege than a need.
I didn't regret it, though. When all of this was over, it would feel good enough to counteract the exhaustion. It would be way worth it.
"It was lovely to meet you, Chris," Lonnie said to my dad as we reached her van. "I was wondering if you and Ryan would like to come over for dinner this Friday night? I have so much more to tell you, especially about your son. He's incredible."
Isaac and I exchanged a nervous glance as my dad wrapped his arm fondly around my shoulders and said, "I bet he is. That sounds awesome, Lonnie; I'd love to c—"
"Actually," I cleared my throat, "We have a game on Friday."
"Oh," Lonnie pursed her lips. "Well we can all meet up there, then. Maybe grab some ice cream afterwards, if you boys aren't too tired."
"You don't want to," Isaac said quickly. "It's far away."
"Real far," I affirmed. "Quite the drive."
"And it's against a really crappy team."
"Not worth it," I said. "We wouldn't even go if we didn't have to."
Isaac scoffed. "No way."
"Besides," I turned to my dad. "Didn't you mention working late on Friday?"
"And mom, I though Mary asked you to pick up her night shift?"
"Well," Lonnie said, "She asked several people, I figured someone else could—"
"Well look at that!" Isaac said cheerfully. "Now you can do it. You're such a good friend, mom."
"The best," I agreed. Then I quickly changed the subject, because clearly lying wasn't our strongest suit, and we were bound to crack if we kept trying.
When my dad and I were sat in his car a few minutes later, he grinned at me and said, "I can't believe you've been doing so much with them and I haven't even heard about it. What's up with that?"
"Sorry," I sighed. "Everything's been so hectic lately. I wasn't trying to keep it from you. I just forgot."
He nodded. "I know the feeling," he said. "It's not an issue. I'm just glad I've gotten to meet them now. What a lovely family. And a lovely woman."
I choked a little. "Pardon?"
Dad chuckled. "Oh, I don't know what I'm saying. It's just that that Lonnie seems to light up the whole room when she smiles, you know?"
Like mother, like son.
"Yeah, dad, that's not gonna work," I said. "At all."
He put his hands up defensively. "I never said I was gonna try anything," he said, and I huffed in relief. "But . . . if I did, why exactly would it be a problem?"
I gave him a pointed look, and his eyes widened. "Oh," he said. "That's the boy?"
"That's the boy."
"Right, then," he nodded. "I won't."
"You better not," I said, smiling.
Laughing, he said, "I won't."
Then he added, "At least now I know my boy has good taste."
Friday evening, Isaac and I were back in Dr. Pam's office.
The appointment started off similar to our last, two weeks ago. Questions, answers, measurements, scanners. But then Dr. Pam brought out what we were really here for—the tester sockets.
They all looked the same to me, but Isaac could feel a difference with each one. It was through listening to him and Dr. Pam talk that I realized just how important the socket was—it was the most crucial part of the prosthetic. If it was just slightly off, friction could lead to serious damage to the skin.
Each socket had a very simplistic, minimalistic leg attached to it—one that wouldn't be much good outside of the doctor's office, but that allowed Isaac to see what each socket felt like with pressure added.
Which meant that for a few minutes, he got to stand again.
He was shaky, having not used his leg in several weeks. So Dr. Pam let me help him stay upright—I got to hold his hands, stepping backward each time he stepped forward, balancing him when he stumbled.
Isaac was glowing. Just being on his feet again had him radiant—he laughed each time he stumbled into me, and from the moment he put each socket on to the moment he took each off, he was smiling. And I was laughing and smiling with him, because I just couldn't help it. Hell, even Dr. Pam was beaming. He really did light up the room.
Somewhere within that hour, I made the decision that this would happen again, no matter what. I would hold Isaac's hands and help him walk, laughing when he tripped and keeping him upright. But the next time it happened, he would be walking with a real leg. One he could keep.
Jesus, I was in deep.
The socket that Isaac liked best was the fourth one he tried. After the decision was made, a few more items that I didn't understand were discussed, then Isaac was back in his chair and I was driving him home.
We entered his house laughing at something he'd said. That laughter died, however, when we saw his mom sat on the couch, staring straight at us.
Shit.
Isaac cleared his throat. "Hey, mom. Shouldn't you be at work?"
She looked ready to leave, already wearing her scrubs and everything. But she didn't move.
"I always get an email before your games," she said. "A typical come out to watch Westview's basketball team play their hearts out type of thing. So when I didn't get one today, you can understand why I was surprised. Surprised enough to go online and look at your game schedule, only to find that your next match isn't until Tuesday."
"Mom . . ." Isaac said, but Lonnie put a silencing hand up and stood, stepping toward us with disappointment in her gaze.
"I know you've been hiding something from me," she said. "God, I've known for weeks. I'm your mother, Isaac. I know these things. And I've been pretending not to notice, because you're too old now for me to constantly hover over you. But once you start lying, I stop pretending."
"Mom," Isaac said as I stood there feeling incredibly awkward, "it's not—don't think I'm doing anything bad. I'm just—"
"No beating around the bush," Lonnie insisted. "The truth, Isaac."
So he told the truth. All of it.
How we'd been going to see a doctor without her knowing. How we'd been getting closer and closer to getting his leg; how he'd wanted to keep it from her because he didn't want to burden her.
By the time Isaac was halfway through, she'd had to sit down. By the time he'd finished, her head was in her hands. Her distress hung in the air, sharp and potent.
She didn't say anything for a while. Isaac sat on the couch next to her—the benefit of at least having one good leg—and put an arm around her.
"I can't believe," Lonnie said eventually, lifting her head to look at him, "I've turned out to be such a useless mother."
"Don't say that," Isaac comforted. "You're the best mom a kid could ask for. If it wasn't for your hard work, I wouldn't have a college plan or insurance or food or water or someone to make me smile on bad nights. I'm just trying to make it easier on you for once, okay?
"I'm eighteen. For the rest of my life I'm going to have to deal with this. Might as well start learning now, right?"
Lonnie sighed. "I know, honey," she said. "I know. I just . . . I feel like you're slipping from my grasp, and I don't know how I'm supposed to let go. Ever since the accident, I've been . . ."
"My hero," Isaac said. "You're my hero. But even superheroes can't always do things all on their own. I mean, you've seen Infinity War. There are, like, twenty heroes in that movie, and they still struggle to get their shit together."
Lonnie nodded, laughing softly. "Okay," she said. "So you're doing this on your own. And that's . . . that's okay. I just have to get used to it. I won't try to butt in. Not financially, at least, unless you ask me to. But I want to be with you at your next appointment."
Isaac smiled. "If all goes well, that should be when I get the temporary prosthetic. Wouldn't go without you."
Lonnie was smiling, too, as she wrapped Isaac in a hug. "Alright, I really have to go now," she laughed. "Or I'm gonna get a serious lecture."
She stood, turning to look at me. I'd been leaning against the armrest of the couch, mentally awe-ing at the mother-son moment but also feeling unbearably awkward, not knowing whether I should watch or just listen or occasionally glance over or what.
Lonnie gave me a hug, too, and a millionth thank you.
"For what it's worth," I said, "I've never really had a mom, but I've seen a lot of really shitty ones. You are one hell of a mother."
"Damn," Isaac breathed when his mom had left. "That actually wasn't awful."
"Nope," I grinned, hopping onto the couch beside him. "She's awesome."
"Never doubted that for a second," he said. "I'm pretty lucky."
"Lucky you are," I agreed. "Awesome mom, awesome me. You're, like, the luckiest guy alive."
But then I realized how insensitive that was, and I quickly backtracked. "Okay, sorry, that was bad. You're definitely not the luckiest guy alive."
Which only led to rambling—which was never a good thing.
"I mean, really. It sucks. You know, with the leg thing. And the Calum and Luke thing. I wouldn't call that luck. I'm lucky, because I've never been through anything like that, and, uh, I'm super grateful and all to not be, you know, unlucky. You're kind of unlucky. Which really sucks, and I'm, like, sorry you have to go through it all, and, yeah."
What Isaac said next surprised me. "I'm not unlucky."
I blinked. "What?"
"I'm really, really lucky," he said. "I'm lucky to have lost my leg."
I wasn't quite sure how to respond to that, so I asked, "Why?"
He looked at me as if he was surprised I didn't get it. "Remember how I lost it?"
"A bus crash," I recalled. Right as the words left my mouth, it hit me. It only made sense that he hadn't been the only person on that bus. "Oh god. . ."
"It was a school bus," Isaac explained. "I don't really remember the details of what happened—it was so long ago, and I got a concussion that made things really blurry. I just now the bus fell on its side—the side where I was sitting. I lost my leg, yeah. Another girl lost her arm. Several kids had broken bones, some got out with cuts and bruises and minor head injuries. Fourteen didn't get out at all."
I leaned back against the cushions, rubbing my temples. I didn't want to hear it. I didn't want to think of fourteen kids, some maybe as young as five, that had been going to or from school on a regular day and never got home. Fourteen families ready to make them lunch or help them with homework or play games with them when they came back, that never got the opportunity. Over a dozen lives lost with no prerequisite.
"My brother—my twin," Isaac continued, and my mouth parted in a silent gasp as I felt my heart drop at what I could guess was coming, "and I used to fight for the window seat every day. He won that day."
My gaze darted to the large picture on the wall. The one of little Isaac. Except little Isaac hadn't had a freckle under his eye. That was his brother.
All this time, and I'd had no idea. Isaac had, once before, had a brother. The loss of a leg was nothing compared to the loss of a brother.
"What was his name?" I asked softly. My eyes scanned the other pictures, the ones I had hardly looked over before. Now I saw him. Another boy, one that looked exactly like Isaac, was all over the wall.
"David," Isaac answered. I tore my eyes away from the pictures to look at him, to see how he was doing. His hand was on his chest, his fingers holding his necklace. A necklace that I realized now was important to him for more reasons than one. The Star of David.
"Are you okay?" I asked tentatively, and he nodded.
"It's one of those things that doesn't really get better, but that you learn to live with. As long as I don't think about him too hard."
"But you do," I guessed, and he gave a bitter laugh.
"Of course I do," he admitted. "He was my other half. It's hard not to think about the future—what could have been."
I understood that much. Nobody but my dad knew this, but I had an older sister out there somewhere. One who'd been adopted by some perfect family before I was old enough to form any lasting memory of her. I'd spent years going over 'what if's in my head. Still, I couldn't help thinking how much harder it must be for Isaac—at least I didn't have anything to miss.
"We used to make all these plans—" he continued after a pause. "Stupid ones, about what we'd do when we got older. We were going to . . . we were going to own a restaurant. A sports bar with live music—at the time, he dreamed about being a basketball player while I spent most of my time around the piano. We argued over what we'd name the restaurant for months—never really did get around to deciding."
So many things had been left unfinished, I thought. Aspirations that went nowhere—David had wanted to be a basketball player, and with one accident, that opportunity was gone.
"Do you—when you play, do you do it for him?"
Isaac smiled sadly. "I started the moment I could run again. I made a list of things he wanted to do—I still have it—and I've been trying to do them all ever since. Of course, I can't really ride a dragon around the world, but most of them are achievable. I guess that's why I was so quick to jump at that assistant coach position even though I can't stand Nars—at least I'm still involved somehow. So I'm not, you know, letting him down."
I wanted to say so many things, but I had no idea how to say them. They all came back to a simple phrase: I'm sorry. But to me, I'm sorry had always sounded cheap. Like a piece of dialogue cut and pasted onto the teleprompter of every tragedy.
If anything, what I really wanted to do was say nothing and give him a hug. Contact had always brought me the most comfort. But I wasn't sure how that would go over.
Isaac was still smiling, and the expression had finally reached his eyes. "I can see exactly what's going on in your head," he said. "You're an open book."
He seemed to want to move away from the topic of this brother, and I wasn't going to stop him. "No one's ever told me that before," I said.
"Maybe they never noticed."
"Yeah," I nodded. "Or maybe I'm a book only you can read."
"Sounds kinda nice," he mused. "Whatever the case, I really like that about you. And yeah, I could use a hug right now."
So I hugged him, and he hugged me back. Somehow, I felt as if I was getting as much comfort as I was trying to give, even if I wasn't the one that needed it.
It was a nice feeling. Warm and safe and open—something to hide in when things got rough. I hated to admit how much I loved it. This kid was killing me.
"Hey, so since we're having this nice moment where we're being all transparent and vulnerable and shit," I said, because I could feel that Isaac really was dying for a subject change, and my curiosity was killing me. "Can I ask you a super invasive question that you totally don't have to answer if you don't want to?"
Isaac sat back into the couch, his eyes amused. "You're making me nervous, Matthews. Spit it out."
I hadn't thought this through. But there was no going back now, and I'd much rather face the consequences of being an awkward shit than bring his thoughts back to his brother.
"Are you . . . So you're, like . . ." No, I most definitely could not word it like that. "Are you gay, at all?"
At all? What the hell does that even mean? What was he supposed to say to that? Oh yeah, I'm just, you know, moderately gay.
Isaac was silent for a moment. Then he laughed, shaking his head and saying, "Christ. Can't say I was expecting that. Why do you want to know?"
"For science, of course," I said.
"Ah, of course." The bastard was smirking. "Well, I'll admit—for science—that the answer to that isn't yes or no. I'm actually pan."
"Dammit," I said under my breath.
His eyebrows shot up, and I could see offense in his gaze when he said, "Is that an issue?"
"What?" I said, just noticing how bad that must've sounded. "No—God no. Callie guessed you were pan and I said I thought you were bi, so now I'm like well fuck, I was wrong. Not that we were making bets over your sexuality or anything. Not with money, at least." That was when I realized I was all flustered and rambling again and that I should probably quit while I was ahead—or at least not too far behind. "So," I cleared my throat. "You're pan. That's cool."
Isaac looked like he was trying not to laugh. "Yup," he said. "And you're gay?"
I coughed. Way to rip off the bandage. "Uh, yeah."
He smiled to himself. "Cool."
I was handling the situation with a lot less grace, but I managed to spit out the word, "Cool," as I mentally prayed for my cheeks to stop feeling so warm.
We were met with an eye roll.
Clearly, Sheriff Darmonth wasn't excited to see us. Sucks for him.
"I've been waiting patiently," Lonnie said. "And waiting, and waiting, and waiting. You said you would look into the tapes, but it's been four weeks. I'm sure you're busy, and I completely respect that. But sheriff, my boy is depending on those tapes, and we'd really appreciate you helping us get them. If we could legally walk into some office and demand to see the footage ourselves, we would, but we can't."
The sheriff stared up from his desk boredly at her, as if to ask, are you done? When she didn't continue, he said, "I have looked into it. I saw the footage."
"Why haven't you shown us, then?" Lonnie asked.
"There's nothing to show," he shrugged. "There was no bully, no leg, no nothing."
He clearly regretted saying that as three voices instantly bombarded him with protests. He kept saying the same thing over and over again, but we refused to believe it. It was impossible.
"We were there!"
"You saw the bruises! And the leg!"
"How can you tell me that it just didn't happen? I'm the one that got my face punched in!"
He got so fed up with us, he raised his booming voice. "Fine! If you don't want to believe me, I'll show you!"
He got to his feet and stormed out, leaving Isaac, Lonnie, and I with no choice but to follow.
He drove us in his cruiser in complete silence toward the alleyway, a block or so past it to a small office. All he had to do was flash his badge before we were let into a circular back room, along the wall of which were lines of cruddy monitors displaying fuzzy, poor-quality live footage of several locations in the area. My eyes instantly found the one showing the alleyway. The man who was meant to be watching them was fast asleep, which explained why no one had managed to notice a boy being ambushed when it must have been displayed right there. The woman who led us back here smacked him upside the head, and he jumped to wakefulness.
"Show me the footage from February sixth. Start at eight PM, and take me through the night."
The man shook himself awake and did some cumputer-y shit. Soon enough, the image on the screen showing the alley was replaced by one that looked almost exactly the same. In the corner of the screen, however, the date and time had changed.
02/06/18
20:00
The man played the footage—a minute-long time lapse that took us from 8 to 11 that night. We watched in horror as nothing happened.
"No . . ." Isaac said. "No, that's not—that's not right. I was there. And Calum and Luke . . . and Ryan. These tapes—"
"Show us exactly what happened," Sheriff Darmonth said. "The truth is right there. You can't argue with evidence. I'm not sure what you were trying to get at with this lie—"
"It wasn't a lie!" Isaac exclaimed. "How can you stand there and tell me all of the shit I went through was a lie?"
"Isaac," his mother warned. Yelling and cursing at the sheriff was never a good idea.
"How can you sit there and tell me that it's true?" Darmonth bit back. "What, were you all just invisible, then?"
I wasn't sure whether Isaac was going to scream or cry. As it turned out, he did neither. He just looked up at his mom and, in a small voice, said, "I want to go home."
That felt a hell of a lot like losing.
I didn't have a fifth period, so I usually spent the time in the school library, reading some book or another that caught my attention.
On Monday, however, there was some creepy girl who sat right next to me despite there being several available seats, and though I tried to concentrate on my book even as I felt her eyes staring unwaveringly at me, I lost it when I heard a sniff and turned to see her recoiling as if she hadn't just smelled me.
So I stood and headed through the double doors at the back of the library, hoping with all of my heart that she would follow me. Thankfully, she didn't, and I entered the school's study hall without being sniffed any more.
I'd never really liked the study hall. It was like the library but less quiet, because it was more of a place to talk than to study, where kids went to skip or avoid lunch or, like me, wait out their free periods.
Callie, on the other hand, loved study hall. So I wasn't surprised to see her there, though I'd forgotten she also had no fifth period.
I was surprised, though, to see her sat on a sofa next to Isaac, chatting like they were old friends.
He noticed me and beckoned me over, so I walked over and sat next to Callie, who gave me a hug upon my arrival as if she hadn't already seen me several times today. She was weird like that.
"What's up?" I asked. "Isaac, I didn't know this was your free period."
"It's not," he grinned. "I have art. But I don't think the teacher ever even noticed when I moved here, so I haven't been to her class in, like, a month. Still have an A though," he said smugly.
Laughing, I said, "So, you guys spend your time here conspiring against me or what?"
"That's exactly what we do," Callie said dryly. "That, and Isaac was just telling me about what happened with sheriff."
I grimaced at the memory. "Yeah, that sucked a lot of ass," I said.
"You would know."
For a moment, I thought I'd heard wrong. But at the sound of a snort from Callie, I realized that I most definitely hadn't. I turned slowly to Isaac, who had his lips pressed tightly together to contain a laugh.
"Oh, so now we've stooped to gay jokes, have we?" I asked, trying my best to sound as serious as possible. "Well I could—"
"Children," Callie rolled her eyes, as Isaac and I snickered. "Behave. There are pressing matters here. Like, what are you going to do now?"
"We've got an appointment on Thursday with the superintendent," Isaac told her. "They're gonna scan my leg for fingerprints. Hopefully, that'll be enough. And my mom and I are trying to figure all of this lawsuit shit out, since Darmonth doesn't seem too inclined to help—it's really fucking complicated."
The legal aspect of this ordeal was the one area where I remained mostly uninvolved. That part was just between Isaac and his mom.
Callie nodded. "My dad's got some pretentious old-people meeting with a bunch of snobs from his job on Saturday. Calum's mom should be there. I was gonna fake sick and stay the hell in my room, but I'll totally drop in to see if I can find out anything good."
We were optimistic going in on Thursday. We had to be—optimism was the only thing keeping our machine running.
Everything went smoothly while we were there. We gave them the leg and talked to Mr. Anderson for a bit, leaving thirty minutes later with a promise to hear the results later today.
Well it was later, and Isaac and I were sat on his bed waiting anxiously for a call. Lonnie had waited with us for an hour before having to leave for work, and we hadn't moved much since. Even talking was minimal—we were too damn nervous.
When Isaac's phone rang, we both jumped. He fumbled to answer, nearly dropping it back to his bed, before pressing against his ear. "Hello? Yes, that's me."
I waited, carefully watching his expression.
I caught the exact moment it fell, cursing under my breath at the sight of his frown.
"Yes, I understand. Okay. Thank you. Bye."
He covered his face with his hands and fell back into his pillows. "What'd he say?" I asked, although a part of me didn't even want to hear it.
"The scans didn't reveal anything potentially incriminating," Isaac quoted. "They identified Calum and Luke's fingerprints, but they were so old and obstructed by new ones that they wouldn't count as solid evidence."
"Holy fuck," I groaned. "This is bad."
"Bad?" Isaac said. "Ryan, do you realize what this means? We lost."
"We didn't lose," I argued.
"What do you call it, then?" He asked. "We have no evidence, Calum and Luke sure aren't going to confess anything, and it's been made pretty clear that a witness statement isn't enough. There's no way we can get anywhere without some form of proof. And that means we lost. There's nothing else for us to use. Our lawsuit died before it even started. No more pressing charges. No more doctor's appointments, and . . . Oh god," he breathed as realization entered his expression. "The bills, holy shit. How are we supposed to pay them off? The two of them alone—with insurance—came up to about five-hundred dollars. How can I take out a five-hundred dollar loan knowing I can't pay it back?
"I've made some money from work—two-hundred, I think—but that's not enough to pay off even one of the appointments! And I can't just let the bills hang forever, I'll only get charged more, and oh god . . ."
I could tell that he was on the verge of panic, so I moved to sit next to him at the head of the bed and said, "Do you really think this is a problem with no solution?"
"It's really starting to look like one, yeah!" he said miserably.
"You can't just take everything you've been given!" I insisted. "I'm going to go ahead and say what we've all been thinking but too scared to say because for some fucked up reason, we're scared of hoping. Those tapes were tampered with!"
Isaac didn't say anything, so I continued. "I mean, we know that! Come on! We know what happened in that alley! Sheriff was right about one thing—we can't just turn fucking invisible! Which means that someone knew we would look for those tapes and got rid of them. All we've gotta do is find them."
I knew it was easier said than done. But it was a start.
"And about those appointments . . ." I said, but then I didn't really know how to say the rest, so I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet. From it, I pulled four hundreds and a fifty, and Isaac's eyes turned wide.
"Where the hell did you get that kind of money?" He gasped.
"I've been working extra hours," I explained. "That's why I've been so tired."
"No way," Isaac shook his head. "I'm not taking your money."
"I have a fireplace," I said threateningly. "You take it, or I burn it. Besides, I only got about two-hundred-fifty from work. The other two-hundred are from the music club."
His jaw fell. "I'm sorry, what?"
"After the incident," I explained, "I asked the club if they'd be willing to all pitch in and give a few dollars—five or so—to help you out. Figured I'd get something between a hundred and one-fifty. But some people donated more than I expected, and it totaled to almost exactly two-hundred. I got everything converted to hundreds—I figured handing you a ton of ones, fives, tens, and twenties might be kind of obnoxious—and here we are."
I expected him to put up a fight and refuse the money. Maybe even straight up smack me. But he grabbed me in a big, tight hug instead.
"Ryan, I don't—" his voice broke. "Thank you."
When the surprise faded away, I held him back, my chin pressed against his shoulder, and said, "Don't mention it."
I winced as his arm pushed against a bruise on my side—a product of Calum and Luke's continuing on-court harassment. "Ow."
"Sorry," Isaac apologized, and he moved to lean back until I pulled him against me again, because . . . well, no explanation necessary.
So, we managed to pay for two of three main appointments without ever having to take out a loan. And we had over a hundred dollars left over. I'd say we were doing pretty damn well for people who were losing.